The invention herein pertains to a steam iron and, more particularly, to an integral plastic riser tube that has flexible uses in many irons and which replaces numerous separate components in a conventional iron.
In irons that use water for either steam or spray or both, it is customary to provide a water tank in the iron shell above the soleplate and under the handle portion and to use conventional controls whereby water is dripped into a boiler and evaporated and directed out steam ports in the soleplate to steam the article. Additionally, manual or power spray attachments may pump a fine spray, onto the garment. In ironing, when the iron is stopped at its forward stroke and depending on the placement of the fill opening, the water tends to keep moving and may be suddenly expelled out the fill opening. Also, when the iron is resting on its heel trapped water may slosh out the fill opening. Further, when the water in the tank boils its viscosity is greatly reduced and the water may be suddenly expelled out the fill opening and this is known as "upchucking". It is common to put baffling in steam iron water tanks to dampen or reduce surges due to momentum of the water and to prevent it being suddenly expelled or "upchucked" during various ironing operations. Typical arrangements are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,497,975 and 3,878,628 of common assignment and directed to specific structures in irons to prevent sudden expelling of hot water out of the fill opening. Additionally, irons have incorporated other features to a basic iron such as self-clean structure as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,747,241 and self-clean with surge in U.S. Pat. No. 3,872,613 both of common assignment. The iron tanks commonly have walled openings therethrough for the linkage structure of the various features.